A. One thing that principals have done to me consistently since
I've been department chair now, its been about 7 or 8 years,
is override specific decisions about placement into honors
courses. That is not, placement is not supposed to be
determined by parents or principals, it's supposed to be based
on certain criteria which are established by this district so
we wouldn't, we would take a student who wants to go into
honors and say "All right, you have to have 8 to 9
____________ here you have to read at this level, you have to
have a teacher recommendation, you have to have these kinds of
grades, you have to pass an entrance test" and we look at all
those criteria and we say, "O.K. you can go in and you people
would be better off in a regular English class." And on
occasion, I should say at least once a year, principals
override those decisions because of parental pressure and that
becomes very difficult. Is that what you want? Those kinds
of examples.
Q. Sure. And do you make those changes?
A. We have no choice. Sometimes we fight them, but eventually if
the principal says put them in, they go in and its for various
reasons. Maybe the parents have beat them down and they've
given up and they say "put them in." Or it could be something
else entirely. We often are not privy to the information why,
but we are overridden, which makes it difficult only in the
sense that put a great deal of time into making these
decisions, testing these kids, we've tested over 100 this
year, we'll read all those papers, we find out all the scores,
we make check with the teachers, get their recommendations and
then when someone, the principal says to us, "Well, this
person doesn't have to meet the criteria" it makes all the
other ones kind of like wasted time. Why did I bother then,
why don't you just let them decide? So that's one thing that
I would say that has been done in the past by principals that
makes it hard to do my job.
Q. Influenced by superintendent?
A. No.
Q. Influenced by department chair?
A. I am one.
Q. How do you think you might influence the teachers with whom
you work? Do you influence them?
A. I've always felt that its important for us to be collegial,
that we feel comfortable with each other, that we trust one
another, that we're willing to help one another, that we're
willing to help one another, cover each other's classes, and
one of the things as department chair is to try to promote
that. The reason this room is a mess is because we all come
in here and eat and so we get a half hour together every day
where part of it is just comic relief and you know, our lunch
time is our fun time, and part of it is we do talk about
department business. We had a new teacher come in this year
fresh out of student teaching. One of our teachers something
happened in November, he was gone one day, he never came back.
She came in as a substitute -- it was the first time she had
ever stepped into this district and she's been here ever
since, and one of the things she always said it was so
wonderful to come into this department because everyone was so
willing to help her. Everyday at lunch we would have ten
different suggestions for her and she's become a real integral
part of our department, so I think, I do a lot of things as
department chair but I think that's one of the important
things I try to do.
Q. What is your role? What responsibilities that you have are
different from ----
A. From everyone else in the department? I'm responsible for
making the schedule, for ultimately for the placement into the
honors courses and the C track (?) courses --
Q. What's that?
A. C track, the lower track. We don't group them separately but
their identified as C track students so a teacher who has 25
students may have two students who are reading at third grade
level, may be identified as English C so the teacher would
know that they are not going to read Romeo and Juliet.
Ordering text books and supplies for the department,
administering the proficiency tests which we just did today,
which is why I'm dressed like this. We test all of our 9th,
10th and 11th graders every year.
Q. Is that district?
A. District-wide, yes. Curriculum planning. I did, in addition
to that this year, and the student really has, well probably
has something to do with my role as department chair but one
of our school goals is communicating effectively and so I in-
serviced our faculty every month this year. We designed kind
of an approach for that goal this year and that was to take
the modes that we teach our kids in class, you know,
description, compare and contrast process, and have the whole
school focus on one of those modes every month, so I in-
serviced the whole faculty every month this year. I'm meeting
with the other department chairmen in the district, English
department and just kind of keeping current with them and
making that sure that all four schools are kind of on the same
track even though we do have different approaches; meeting
with the other department chairs in the building to work on
budgeting and supplies for the coming year.
Q. Influenced by the school board?
A. Yes. The school board, two years ago, did away with a cap
that we had on English class enrollment. We wanted to limit
it to 125 students a day or 25 in a class and we'd had that
cap for eight or ten years and because of budget constraints,
they did away with that two years ago and now our classes are
30, in the 30s, up to 30, over 30. That's had a great deal of
affect on us. They also took away department chairmen
planning periods last year; this is my first year without a
period, so I'm still charged with the same job but they took
away my hour a day to do it. That's had a great deal of
influence on my life.
Q. I assume they took away all subjects ---?
A. All, all subjects, yeah. Without concern that there are some
departments of two people or three people that really don't
need it. Some larger departments where the work load isn't as
heavy, I'm sure that everyone feels they work very hard and
they know they do, but we know in English that we're, another
department, the other biggest department say Social Studies
may have six courses, eight courses, one book each course. We
have probably 20 courses with up to 10 books for each course.
A lot of difference in the work load in different departments
and it would be nice to have the pay to do the work.
Q. Influenced by state or federal programs?
A. Are you talking about budget?
Q. Budget, testing or curriculum.
A. The state has instituted their new ASAP testing and we met a
couple times last year to look at that. We feel very strongly
in (city name) that our yearly testing is much better than the
state testing, that it does a better job. For one thing, the
state testing which is given in 12th grade doesn't do diddly
squat if the kid, if you determine on the testing that they
don't know anything its too late to do anything. They're out
of there. Our testing is done in Language Arts, 7th-8th- 9th-
10th and 11th grade and we have a remedial program for those
students who don't pass the writing proficiency every year, so
if its determined that they aren't writing at grade level then
they enroll in writing lab and we try to fix it. And yet, we
really have no choice about giving that ASAP test. We feel
like if we are going to have to give it and meet certain
standards with it, then we're going to have to change our
curriculum. We will have to change our curriculum to --
Q. Are you going to do that?
A. We don't know yet. One of the things the district agreed to
do this year is to just take the test cold. Not change any of
our curriculum, let the kids go in cold and find out how
they're going to do on it. Maybe they'll do o.k. and we won't
even have to worry about it. If, on the other hand they
don't, if they come out looking really poor and our district
is very concerned that this is kind of a report card, its kind
of a measuring device that hold up one school against another
and say this one is doing great, this one isn't then we are
definitely going to have to change our curriculum and there
have been things in there that we really don't agree with,
like these are called the essential skills and someone, I'm
sure, in his infinite wisdom somewhere has decided that
writing poetry is a life skill and that students who graduate
from high school should be able to write a poem and as an
English teacher who loves the language and loves to read, and
who's never written a poem in her life, I have a real hard
time with that. For everything that we add to our curriculum
because the state is testing on it, we have to get rid of
something because we don't have enough room as it is and I
don't know, well that is just one of my gripes, the ASAP. But
that is what the state has done to influence my life.
Q. Influence by the federal government, federal programs.
A. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I will anyway.
We are, right now, under an investigation by OCR by the
Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights this year in
which I've been involved in. I've been accused of discrimina-
ting against Hispanic children and then after a while of
retaliating against the children because I was accused of
discriminating. So that's been an ongoing investigation all
year which has taken a great deal of my time and so I'd have
to say, yes I've been affected by the federal government.
Q. How does someone stand up to that?
A. Well, I kind of just did it on my own because we weren't asked
to stand up to it. Have you ever been involved with the
Department of Education or any investigation that they have?
Q. No.
A. Well, it was very, very strange for me because I've never been
through anything like this. I didn't know what to expect but
our district has, a couple three years ago in one of our
schools in the Southern end an elementary school, there was a
big deal about the principal and there was an investigation,
so our district has been through it once and they have a very
competent attorney who has been through the whole thing so
when this thing came up we had a meeting of everyone that
might be named from all the schools and they're naming, these
three schools are feeder elementary school, our middle school
and this school because they have children in all three
schools.
Q. That's one family?
A. Uh huh. So we had a meeting and the district said, "Now this
is likely what's to happen. They are not investigating any
individuals. They are claiming there is discrimination in
honors placement, in guidance service and in athletics and all
they're going to be doing is looking at district policy to see
if our policy is discriminatory. So we went in there, I went
in there feeling fairly confident. I have district criteria
to use in facing students. I don't make it up. I don't go
around, look at kids and say "o.k., you're in, you're out".
I mean it's pretty objective, it's all written down and I sat
down and the investigator said, "O.k. The complainant has
alleged that you ..... ......" and she read off six
allegations which I'd never heard before, out of the blue.
"You give preferential academic treatment to your cheerleaders
because you're their coach. You," I mean there were a few
things about the way I handled her son and her daughter but I
mean, here they are right out of the blue, and the
investigator read them to me and said, "Why don't you just go
through them one by one and respond?" And I said, "Respond?
O.k. Let me get this right. Am I here defending myself? I
mean I don't understand the purpose of this investigation. I
figured you were going to ask me about placement into English
classes and so on and so forth." Well, no that wasn't what
they were going to do. So just off the cuff, given no
preparation at all I was asked to respond to these. So then
because of the way that whole thing was handled, then I spent
another couple weeks putting together a letter which I sent to
the Director of the Denver Regional Office about what's going
on and how the investigation was handled and how I felt and
what it was wrong to question me like that and all the
responses I had that I couldn't think of off the cuff because
it was so unexpected. And so, yes. What was your question?
Did I get off the track?
Q. No, it was fine. I didn't understand how people stood up to
something like that but that was fine.
A. O.k. That was the federal government. You asked me if the
federal government had any impact. Yes. So all year I have
been being interviewed, responding to letters, speaking on the
telephone. I mean the things that OCR can ask for it just
blows my mind. We test a 100 students. That involves
probably four sheets of paper for each student plus printouts,
computer printouts like that one on that box sitting on top of
that cart, all their grades, their previous test scores, their
reading scores. All these things that we compile and OCR can
just call up and say we want a copy of everything that you
did, every piece of paper from testing last year. And so then
I'm supposed to go down to the xerox and spend hours upon
hours copying every single thing that I tested for every
student, not just the one student that they're concerned
about. All 100 of them. The ones that didn't make it in and
the ones that did make it in. They make great demands on your
time without any regard to whether you have the time or not.
Boy, you know how to get me started.
Q. Influenced by the school board. Do I say school board?
A. What did I say about? I said yes because they cut my, they
cut the class I __________________.
Q. Influenced by parents?
A. The parents at this school, I guess I'd have to say parents in
general, they're pretty representative, can be wonderful and
so helpful. I mean like I sent a little note to our parent
newsletter group and said "Please ask parents if they couldn't
send some Kleenex. The kids are, you know we have allergy
season upon us, our school nurse has like these little boxes
of wood chips. We're spending, I know personally I spend like
between $1.50 and $3.00 a week on Kleenex and you know, within
a couple days I had parents bringing me little boxes of
Kleenex. They're very caring and their very supportive,
they're very helpful, they're always there for you. On the
other hand, they can cause a lot of problems too. For
example, the parents that filed the complaint I was talking
about, very, very demanding of my time. Insisting on meetings
one week after one week, one week, one week, demanding that I
call her son in once and twice a week to work with him. For
no, I mean, and they wanted their meetings for no other reason
that to badger me continuously. Why isn't he getting an "A"?
Why isn't he getting an "A"? They wanted me to bring their
son in to work with him on his writing to improve his writing
skills which I was very happy to do but when he came into my
room, he didn't want to work on his writing. He wanted to
know why he got a "C" on his paper, why he didn't get an "A"
on this, you know. That get's in the way of what you're
trying to do alot. So, I think that parents go both ways
across the spectrum.
Q. Do parents in general influence curriculum or how you teach or
how you discipline students or communication?
A. I think that depends a little bit on the principal. We've had
parents running our school for the last couple of years.
That's one of the problems that we had where they, I believe,
just kind of went outside of their bounds, got a little wild
and decided that the whole school was their domain and some
very, very influential parents were very close to our last
principal and I don't know, kind of had them in their pocket.
Special favors for their kids, you know. Kind of stuff like
that. Now the principal that we have now has, I mean, that is
not going on right now. It will not go on as long as he's
here and I think the parents deal well with that, too. They
respect that, they know that things are different. So, it
depends on the principal. It can go either way.
Q. Influenced by professional organization?
A. No. I think that they've not, all professional organizations
have not done a very good job. They have, I think they're
partially responsible for increasing class sizes in English or
doing away with the department chair, period. Or lot's of
concessions that have been made to district administration
over the last few years. So, I guess I'd have to say yes,
they do influence me but not in a positive way.
Q. O.k. Shaped by in-service training?
A. Oh, sure. I think that we have lots of good in-service
possibilities available throughout our district and if you
want to improve your, using computer, there are classes
available. If you want to work on cooperative learning we
have those kinds of things available in our district. We're
a site-based shared decision making district. We're working,
moving more and more towards adapting that model completely.
It's hard, and lot's of problems but the district is providing
a lot of in-service to help everyone get through that, so I'd
say one good thing about our district is that we do have real
strong in-service, I don't know what you call it, you know,
they provide for a lot of continuing education.
Q. Have you changed anything with the way you work because of in-
service training?
A. Oh yeah, I have. When I first started teaching I really never
did any cooperative learning and I found myself doing more and
more of that. That is the result of the in-services also is
a result of increased class sizes. We have to do more group
stuff.
Q. Influenced by colleagues?
A. Every day. One instance, I had a student teacher, she was my
on-site teacher and then came back and was my student teacher
and then taught here with us. We became closer than most
colleagues working together because we were in each others
space in the same room all day, and it was because of that
trust that was built up between us and because we became good
friends, I suppose, that we embarked on some team teaching
projects that were kind of fun. I'd never really felt
comfortable enough to do that with anyone until her.
Q. Influenced by students?
A. Every day. And incident -- I don't even know where to begin
there. I mean, my work life is influenced every day because
I wouldn't dare walk in my room without something graded that
they knew they expected to get back, or that I'd told them
that they were going to get back, and that's like the whole
core of everything I do, interaction with students. I coach,
pom and cheer, I spend probably 10 hours a week with those
kids. Some of them are my students. That, coaching, working
with them on pom and cheer and because some of them are there,
JV and Varsity Varsity three years in a row, you get really
close the those kids. But it's a really positive pay off in
the classroom, when you have them in class and you have them
on pom and cheer and you do such totally different things in
class than you do in pom and cheer, but a lot of the good
feeling from being together at camp or riding buses to games
or whatever, carries through to the classroom even it its a
subject that they don't particularly like or they're having a
hard time in, and I think it also just kind of helps to bring
the class along too. You know how it is when you have one
person who really likes you, if you can kind of bring the rest
of them along, you know, they are willing to give you a
chance. That's one thing I can say.
Q. Creative attempt to improve that was thwarted?
A. O.k. The last year, last year was our first year on a new
schedule which was a schedule where we would meet the kids
four days a week and one of those days would be a double
period so we had a regular class schedule three days a week
and then the fourth and fifth day we had classes like 1, 2 and
3 and then 4, 5, and 6 would be 1 1/2 hour periods. We also
had worked into that schedule what we called originally
"conference period." One hour on both of those days. We
dropped that schedule about a month ago and went back to the
old standard, six periods a day, five days a week because of
problems with it and I believe those problems came about
because of unpositive teachers and students and parent and
administrators because we had a group that was a little, not
a little, that was divided on whether we should have that
schedule or not. We had, I think those who kind of sabotaged
it because they didn't want it, didn't want to see it work,
wanted us to go back to what we have now and we had those who
worked very hard to try to make it work and it just never did.
Poor planning was, like well, the first year we did it we
planned it in the Spring. We came in the Fall to start the
schedule -- one of the teachers in my department said this was
not the baby we gave birth to. Over the Summer the principal
had given it to the parents and said, "Here you plan it" and
the parents had turned it into something that wasn't even
close to what are original conception of this conference
period was. It ended up to what the kids thought that those
two days were sleep-in days, you know, you didn't come to
school until 8:45, instead of really using it for some one-on-
help with teachers that, you know, in subjects they were
having trouble with -- I still believe that it could have been
a good thing if enough people would have worked to make it
work. Does that answer that?
Q. Failed attempt to influence you that you resisted?
A. A failed attempt to influence me in a way I resisted. You
know, this doesn't sound, I don't want this to come out
sounding wrong but I'm a really strong person and I guess I'm
kind of a leader in this school and I just, I don't recall in
a recent past someone trying to influence me or make me do
something I didn't want to do. I don't think I can answer
that one.
Q. The answer you gave me just before where you tried to
institute a new schedule, there were people who resisted that
and worked around it until they got rid of it.
A. That wasn't my schedule.
Q. Was there anything that the administration asks of you that
you don't agree with or you just don't do or ignore?
A. I'm sure there are. Well, our situation has been unusual in
the last couple three or four years and the principal that we
have now, we're all working very hard to try to make things
work because we have a lot of respect for him. He was our
principal for eight years, about ten years ago, twelve or
thirteen years ago, and those of us that know him are glad
that he's back. The last principal that we had, things got so
very, very bad I think some of us would have loved to see him
fall on his face. I mean that doesn't sound nice but
everything he did was so dishonest and misdirected and
destructive to our school and our faculty that just about
everything he did made me mad and I just kind of went around
him all the time if I could. It was, the only way of dealing
with some people is just not deal with them. It was kind of
like that. I'm not sure again if I answered your question.
Q. Mean when talk about bureaucratic constraint on teachers?
A. Different things. Like we can buy paper at BIZ Mart for less
than we can buy it through our warehouse catalog but we're not
allowed to buy it at BIZ Mart. We're not allowed to use
school money to go buy something that is available in our own
warehouse. Well, it's cheaper at BIZ Mart, you know. To me
that's garbage. We run out of money or paper every year in
the library and our parent group, who are wonderful, raise
money and go over to BIZ Mart and buy paper for us and bring
it to our library. Why I can't go -- I could go on and on for
hours here. I am coach for pom and cheer and the financing,
it seems like everything revolves around money in one way or
another, they go to camp in the Summer and they take 37 girls
and it roughly runs to about $250 a girl and I have to pay the
bus company, I have to pay airline tickets, I have pay the
camp, and then the girls have to get camp outfits and the
school, according to state law the girls are supposed to raise
money and every dime goes into the book store and she writes
the checks for all the things that they need but she's not
here in the Summer time and so the lady over in the district
office is supposed to do it but she gets angry because she
says its not her job and leaves things sitting in the safe for
two months and dealing with that kind of stuff makes life
miserable, I think, for all teachers. I can go, there are at
least a half dozen in the district I can go to buy paperback
books that we're using all the time in all of our classes, but
I can't do that. We have to order them through the
requisition through these certain vendors who charge $2-$3
more a book.
Q. What do you think might be different in a private school?
A. I have no idea. I've never, I've taught in public school all
my career. I think that probably teachers have less freedom
than they do in public schools, that probably some of the
bureaucracy is, there is less bureaucracy. I would, that
would just be a guess.
Q. Do you think a public school could ever be like a private
school?
A. No, because of the politics, because of the state legislature.
There's down, all the way down. No, I don't think so.
Q. Ranking
A. Do I do 1, 2, 3, 4 or can I do 1, 1, 1, 1?
Q. No.
A. B = 1, A = 2, C = 3, D = 4. I only say that because sometimes
I think they need to be whacked _________________________.